Wish You Were Here
by Color With Marker
Summary: Natasha's favorite thing about Bruce is that he doesn't pry when she doesn't want to talk.


This can be read as a stand-alone, but is intended as a sequel to _On the Steps of the Courthouse_ and _There is No Right Way to Feel About This_. It's part of a longer series, Fallen Son, which can be found on Ao3, for those interested.

* * *

Natasha can't remember the last time she rowed. The earliest back she can remember is a mission in Juneau where one of the newer agents ended up in the water, but there was a mission with Agent Ward long before he was a traitor where they were on a cruise, and neither can remember how they made it from there to land other than waking up on some rocks bone-dry and without a paddle. She had the option for a speedboat, but the waters are calm today, and she doesn't mind the four mile row from the main island to Stark's private island. It gives her time to reflect. On life. On friends. On the shit-show that is her life. On Bruce, whom she's rowing toward at the moment. On Steve, whom is still dead, despite some people being convinced he has returned from the dead to be the next Winter Soldier. On the Avengers, or lack thereof. On Laura, whom isn't allowed to be her friend right now, but still talks to her on the phone and sends pictures and videos of the kids through email. On the fish she can see swimming around her canoe.

She stops twenty feet from the shore and steps into the water, cautious that the bottom of her sundress doesn't get too wet and opting to go barefoot, and drags the canoe the rest of the way. Bruce is on the shore practicing yoga, exactly in the location he had described over the phone. She smiles.

"Hey, stranger," she calls out.

"Hey yourself," he replies. "How do you feel about fish?"

"It doesn't matter, since I'm sure that's what dinner is."

Bruce smirks and stands upright, doing a few more light stretches before walking down to where Natasha is. He grabs her bag out of the canoe. She holds her sandals. "That's dinner if we can catch it," he says.

"I've never taken you for the fishing type."

"And I've never taken you for the rowing type."

Natasha's smile grows. She hasn't been able to have a light banter with anyone recently without things going sour in the same minute. Bruce knows she doesn't want to talk about these things, and he won't until she brings it up. She misses that about her life. The slice of normality.

Of course, Bruce isn't squatting in a man-made hut, but in a beach mansion provided by Tony. It had air conditioning, but Bruce has all the windows open for the breeze to come through. The kitchen is well-stocked, meaning no fishing for anything other than pleasure, if they even do that within the two days Natasha is here. There are several bedrooms around the house, and though Bruce will likely offer her one far from his, she does plan on sleeping in his bed (platonically… mostly). There will also be separate bathrooms for both of them, so they don't have to worry about running out of hot water for their showers. There's not much furniture and plenty of open space. Just for kicks, she does a few chasses across the room, much to Bruce's obvious amusement. He pours them each a mimosa and they clink glasses before sipping calmly.

"So what else do you do here other than fish and yoga? Don't tell me there's a gold course too," Natasha says.

"Read, mostly. Walk on the beach and through the jungle. Try to see if I accidentally discover a new species of plant while I'm at it. Nothing interesting," Bruce answers.

"Sounds interesting to me."

"Really? You've been around the world, and doing the most quiet, mundane things is what interests you?"

"Don't say that like you haven't travelled the world too, doc. Maybe's it's after you've seen it all when doing nothing interesting is the best thing for you."

Bruce nods in agreement. They finish their first, second, and third glasses of mimosa before Bruce takes Natasha to go fishing. She honestly has no idea how to fish, and Bruce shows her the ropes. She catches and releases the first three fish, which prompts a competition over who can catch the most fish, then who can catch the largest fish. Natasha laughs when Bruce thinks he's caught one and ends up reeling in a clump of seaweed. He laughs when she finds a crab's pincher clamping her hook. After two hours, they agree to disagree on whose catch is the winner. They take a long route back to the mansion so Bruce can show Natasha all of the spots he's come to adore more than others. He then asks what she wants for dinner, before deciding he'll just surprise her instead.

Natasha tells Bruce that the steaks he grills smells amazing, and the spices he uses compliment it perfectly, but she finds herself poking at it with her fork. She has an appetite, but not the focus on actually eating her food. Bruce notices and sets his fork and knife down.

"I'm not going to force you to tell me anything, but if there's something on your mind, it might help you feel better if you just say it out loud," he says.

Natasha takes this into consideration. She wants to tell him everything, but she doesn't know where to start. "The funeral was nice. A very peaceful gathering. No reporters or paparazzi were close enough to disturb us," she says. And Bruce already knows these things, she's sure of it.

"I heard that Thor came to visit," Bruce continues.

"He did. The floating lanterns were a nice touch. You would've gotten a kick out of the stone-faced agents releasing them. A few acted like it could poison them if they mishandled it."

Things are normal from there, with Bruce taking out a small journal and showing Natasha the different animals and plants he has been studying on the island in the last month. She's glad he doesn't let her dwell in SHIELD and Avengers business too long. She likes having a break from that craziness.

Bruce turns in at dusk, kissing Natasha on the cheek and pointing out the room he set up for her already. Natasha can tell that he doesn't want her in his bed – out of fear, based on his body language – and lets them be separate for the night. She washes her face and dresses into night clothes before laying under the covers and staring at the ceiling. She has to get up and pull down the shades to block the sunset, then puts them back up once it's dark out. She can't help but admire the clear night sky and its many stars. She decides tomorrow her and Bruce will watch the sunset on the beach. It's rare she has the chance to see a clear sunset on an ocean like this. It's rare she's even in a place that sees the sky anymore.

Natasha's thoughts end up back not to Steve, but to Rumlow. Sharon had recounted everything from the night he attacked her. She said he had said that when he came for the Avengers that Natasha was first. He was a man of his word, and if he could, he would most definitely kill her. Any other time, Natasha would scoff and dare him to try. But now is not any other time. She is a bit scatterbrained and unfocused. She has become paranoid. This is the first night she'll sleep without a knife under her pillow and a gun tucked between the mattress and headboard. She doesn't know the meaning of feeling safe anymore. Rumlow will come again, but she doesn't know when. She doesn't like not knowing when.

She doesn't know when she's blessed with sleep, but she sleeps long and heavily, and by the time she's awake, it's nearly midday. She finds Bruce in the kitchen making brunch and humming to myself. He notices her sitting on the island counter after a few minutes and smirks.

"I thought I was gonna have to dump a bucket of ice on you to wake you up," he teases.

"'m glad you didn't," she replies with a yawn.

"Sleep well?"

"Better than I have in weeks."

Bruce looks away from the stove again. "That bad, huh?"

"Much worse than you think."

"Hmm. That's why I try not to think. About any of that, I mean. I don't pretend it isn't there, but I try not to let myself get lost in that world." Bruce turns of the stove and leaves his hand squeezed around the knob. "But it's so damn hard sometimes."

"Because we're programmed to always put these things above all else," Natasha says. That's what they are: programmed. She's programmed to put her loyalties (to the Red Room, to the KGB, to SHIELD) above everything, especially herself. Bruce is programmed to keep himself as calm as he can, just so he isn't captured and – well, he doesn't know what will happen after capture, and neither does Natasha, and they don't want to know what might come next.

Bruce sets a plate in front of Natasha. Scrambled eggs and fresh fruit. "Anything you want to do today?" he asks.

"Sunset," she answers before shoveling a forkful of egg into her mouth.

"That can be arranged. But how about something between now and ten hours later?"

Natasha shrugs. She doesn't know what people do when they aren't, well, a SHIELD agent, in her case. Bruce goes into the hall closet and pulls out Monopoly. "Ever played this before?"

No, she hasn't and as they spend the next three hours invested in the game, Natasha recounts missions she's had to Atlantic City, and starts out by only purchasing properties that relate to them. Busting a rogue agent on Atlantic in the bus station. The time she disguised herself as one of the divers for the Canadian team during an airshow and had to land on the boardwalk, right where her target was spectating. A showdown between her and Agent May (before she switched to SHIELD) with several knives on the corner of Oriental and Connecticut. It isn't until Bruce owns all the green properties when Natasha realizes she has to buy all the same color spaces in order to get the one-up on Bruce. She's too focused on the past, before it became what it has been these last months.

After Bruce wins the game, she takes a nap. She doesn't understand why it's so tired, but she can guess that Bruce would link it to depression.

Bruce makes them a light dinner and puts it in a cooler for their night on the beach, and Natasha offers to carry the blanket for them. She checks herself out in a bathroom mirror several times before they go, making sure she's the perfect balance of sexy and modest, if there is such a thing. It's just a green dress and black panties. She isn't sure why she's so damn worried about her appearance. She's never done this before, not even for Bruce. But now… now she's concerned about whether or not to put on a light layer of lip gloss.

They sit far from the water, preparing for the inevitable rising tide, and sit down on their blanket to a dinner of sandwiches and chips. They're quiet while they eat, just staring out into the ocean and waiting for the sunset. Natasha thinks about how Steve would love this view. No. She can't think about Steve. That's the last thing she wants to think about. Instead, she thinks about Bruce, who's chewing a mouthful of bread, lettuce, turkey, and cheese. She thinks about how soft his lips were when they had kissed in Sokovia. She thinks about how he's so afraid to touch her, as if she's made of glass, as if he'll be the one to screw up whatever they have between them. She thinks about how she looks at him the same way, and if either of them will be able to look at the other any differently.

Bruce takes out sunglasses for Natasha once the sun is too bright for them, and she accepts them with a smile. She rests her head against his shoulder as they watch day turn to night. His hand rests on her thigh, close to her knee. She almost takes his hand and moves it closer up her leg, but she doesn't want to push the boundaries just yet. In fact, now that she thinks about it, she had no idea what boundaries might or might now be there. This moment is too peaceful for her to worry about that. There's always later.

Bruce and Natasha take turns pointing out different constellations in the sky, though there are a few that they debate over the name of. Some airplanes flying overhead mess them up.

Natasha decides to just come out with it and say, "Rumlow isn't dead."

Bruce tenses for a moment. "I had a hunch," he replies.

"And he wants to kill off the rest of us. He's the one he killed Steve."

"Makes the most sense."

"He says that I'm the first one he's coming after." Natasha moves her head from Bruce's shoulder to look him in the eye. He looks scared. "And I'm not sure if or when he'll make his move."

"Natasha…" Bruce whispers. He cups her cheek in his hand, his thumb running over her bottom lip.

"He was able to get to Sharon. She's still recovering from the encounter. And that wasn't even the worst thing he's done to a person. Who knows what he'll do to me," she continues. "And I want to say I'm not afraid of him, but I've never been so fucking terrified in my life. He killed one of my friends, and hurt another one. And he might not even come directly at me. He could go after Sharon, or Tony, or Clint, or even you."

"So what are you going to do?" Bruce asks.

Run. That's all she wants to do. She wants to grab Bruce's hand, cut off all ties with SHIELD, and fucking run from it all. She's tired of this cycle that always ends with her getting hurt. She's tired of being shot, being stabbed, being thrown through glass and wood, being expected to walk away from one mission and step into the next like she's been trained to do. She wants to run with the one person who she can run with.

"I don't know," she lies.

Natasha looks out into the ocean, the moon reflecting over the gentle waves. She's overcome with the urge to go swimming. She stands and starts walking over, stripping off her dress halfway there before diving in. She swims out until she's waist-deep in the ocean, then turns back to look at Bruce. He's clearly not going to miss out on the fun, as he's trying to take off his shorts without tripping over them. Natasha wades in the water on her back, letting herself get lost in thought as she floats. It isn't until Bruce splashes water on her that she gets back to reality. Bruce is in his boxers and trying his hardest not to stare at Natasha's chest.

"You're just full of surprises, aren't you?" he says lightheartedly. Natasha smiles and stands upright before splashing him. Some seawater gets in his mouth and he splutters trying to get it out. It turns into a splash war between them, two full-grown adults reverted back to children.

When Natasha thinks about it, neither had a childhood. Hers was robbed, his was miserable. They deserved a moment of acting like children, even at the ages of forty-six and however old she really was.

Then Bruce ended up trying to dunk Natasha in the water, and when she tried to dunk him in retaliation, they began wrestling. A wave catches them when Natasha's arms and legs are wrapped around Bruce's neck and waist trying to drag him down, and the two end up washing along the shore, Natasha on her belly and Bruce on his back. They huff and laugh at how ridiculous they were acting not ten seconds ago. Natasha's fingers brush against the palm of Bruce's hand. They're calloused.

Natasha puts on her dress and Bruce his shirt, and they gather their things before heading back up to the beach mansion. They put their things on the front porch before Bruce suggests they rinse off the sand and seawater before going inside. Natasha grins and strips bare, purposefully keeping her back turned to Bruce to keep a little something for him to wait and see, before heading into the outside shower hut. She's only rinsing herself for a minute before Bruce comes and cages her against the wall, pressing his lips to hers with such intensity that Natasha wraps her arms around his waist to keep her knees from giving out.

He ends up carrying her from the shower hut inside the house and upstairs into his bed. She busies herself with his neck and shoulder as he does, until he drops her onto the bed and hunches over her like a wild cat about to devour its prey. Bruce then hesitates, and she knows he's trying to go at this in a way that won't get him aroused. His arousal would lead to an accelerated heartbeat, leading to the Hulk coming in at the worst possible time. He takes Natasha's hands and holds them above her head, before going back to kissing her. One of his hands plays with her breast, pinching her nipple every now and then to elicit soft moans from her. She waits for his hand to make its way to where she expects it to go, down her stomach and between her legs, teasing her as she hopes, before entering her in a way that has her losing breath. She fights to free her hands, and pulls Bruce against her the second she does. She needs all of him against all of her. She breathes and moans and gasps into his ear as two fingers work into her very core heat, and his mouth presses itself against her jaw. Sex is nothing new to her, but sex that she actually wants and not to be done as part of a mission is Greek to her. Sex with Bruce is sex that she wants. Sex with Bruce is exciting and orgasmic and has her crying out as the heat fills her entire body and has her shuddering between him and the sheets, which he wipes his fingers against.

Natasha spoons against him, with her as the little spoon, and falls asleep much easier tonight. And when she returns to the States tomorrow and Tony smirks at the marks on her neck, he knows better than to say anything about it.


End file.
